Well-known member

Well-known member

I am using cometchat on my site, and have been encountering many issues so far. If you plan to use their cometchat service ($9-$99 per month) then most issues are resolved.You will need this even if you only have 2 people in your chat. Displaying the bar to guests (without giving them chat functionality) will bring down your website unless you pay for their service.
There is no usergroup permissions, which is a massive issue.
Therefore there also is no special access for subscribers and also no log access to moderators.
Users can not be in more than 1 room and keep hopping from room to room.
These issues will likely be addressed in the future.

Cometchat has many more functions than Arrowchat. CC keeps releasing new stuff which is great.
Arrowchat has few functions and very little development. But Arrowchat is coded very well.

Formerly CyclingTribe

I use CometChat on CycleChat (CC on CC ) - but it is not an "open" use set-up - I have created a usergroup who can see/access Cometchat and members have to ask to be put in this group.

When I had it open to everyone it did use a lot of resources on the server because calls were made to the database with every page load for every user regardless of whether they actually used the chat facility or not - so that's when I decided to wrap the Cometchat java call in a usergroup conditional and reduced it from over 1,000 active users to just under 40 or so.

It's not something I promote and it's sort of counter-intuitive on a forum, but I wanted to offer a similar set-up when we migrated over from IP.Board (and IP.Chat) and after trying a few options such as ArrowChat and TiagraChat (hope I've got the spelling correct?) - I ended up with CometChat.

TBH It's not a patch on IP.Chat but it has kept the chat fiends of CycleChat happy so can't complain too much.

Well-known member

Well-known member

I used Arrowchat for about a year and a half. My members just thought it was a little awkward to use, and would probably have the same opinion as CometChat. They prefer and use the Taiga chat add-on, although it has less features (no personal messaging, no private forums, etc.)

Well-known member

But realchat doesn't have a buddybar like cometchat or arrowchat does. It's just a chatroom and the Taiga shoutbox/chat room addon here in Xenforo can do that. Plus, it's fully integrated and uses low resources. The main benefit to the others is the buddybar.

Well-known member

Skysa is a good option for smaller sites. Also its a cheaper hosted solution that just works. It's look is not great though. Comet Chat has issues and also can be a gateway for hackers. I currently use comet chat but had to modify to get things to work right.

Member

Skysa is a good option for smaller sites. Also its a cheaper hosted solution that just works. It's look is not great though. Comet Chat has issues and also can be a gateway for hackers. I currently use comet chat but had to modify to get things to work right.

Well-known member

I can really really really advice against Realchat based on personal experiences. There's a HUGE load of bugs and issues, no support, no development, limited customizations (try to replace emotion shortcuts, it's an utter nightmare!) It has some decent stuff, integration is interesting and certain ideas it brings are quite good (such as kicks with a bantimer, relatively easy way to change the colors of the chat and admin-set passwords to get administrator / operator permissions...) but ultimately, Realchat is really really bad. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of money they ask for it compared to what it offers.